Ted Kooser was born in Ames, Iowa in 1939. Ted is the auther of 12 collections of poetry. He lives in Garland, Nebraska with his wife Kathleen Rutledge. Ted spends time learning about the Great Plains. He also spent time working for an insurance industry as an executive. He has won two NEA Literary Fellowships in 1976 and 1984, the Pushcart Prize, the Nebraska Book Awards for Poetry in 2001 and Nonfiction in 2004, the Stanley Kunitz Prize in 1984, the James Boatwright Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2005. Visit the Ted Kooser website http://bit.ly/gOYTDg !
Here are some poems by Ted Kooser: Flying at Night
Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations. Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies like a snowflake falling on water. Below us, some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death, snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn back into the little system of his care. All night, the cities, like shimmering novas, tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.
Father
Today you would be ninety-seven if you had lived, and we would all be miserable, you and your children, driving from clinic to clinic, an ancient fearful hypochondriac and his fretful son and daughter, asking directions, trying to read the complicated, fading map of cures. But with your dignity intact you have been gone for twenty years, and I am glad for all of us, although I miss you every day—the heartbeat under your necktie, the hand cupped on the back of my neck, Old Spice in the air, your voice delighted with stories. On this day each year you loved to relate that the moment of your birth your mother glanced out the window and saw lilacs in bloom. Well, today lilacs are blooming in side yards all over Iowa, still welcoming you.
Ted Kooser
By: Sadie GoetzeTed Kooser was born in Ames, Iowa in 1939. Ted is the auther of 12 collections of poetry. He lives in Garland, Nebraska with his wife Kathleen Rutledge. Ted spends time learning about the Great Plains. He also spent time working for an insurance industry as an executive. He has won two NEA Literary Fellowships in 1976 and 1984, the Pushcart Prize, the Nebraska Book Awards for Poetry in 2001 and Nonfiction in 2004, the Stanley Kunitz Prize in 1984, the James Boatwright Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2005. Visit the Ted Kooser website http://bit.ly/gOYTDg !
Here are some poems by Ted Kooser:
Flying at Night
Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.
Father
Today you would be ninety-seven
if you had lived, and we would all be
miserable, you and your children,
driving from clinic to clinic,
an ancient fearful hypochondriac
and his fretful son and daughter,
asking directions, trying to read
the complicated, fading map of cures.
But with your dignity intact
you have been gone for twenty years,
and I am glad for all of us, although
I miss you every day—the heartbeat
under your necktie, the hand cupped
on the back of my neck, Old Spice
in the air, your voice delighted with stories.
On this day each year you loved to relate
that the moment of your birth
your mother glanced out the window
and saw lilacs in bloom. Well, today
lilacs are blooming in side yards
all over Iowa, still welcoming you.